MORE fiery criticism from a regional Toyota high-up about how some makes are mis-using ‘hybrid’ as a descriptive has become a friendly fire attack on the brand here.

Comment from a Toyota Australia executive this week stand to rekindle memory of how Toyota here and there undertake wholly disparate marketing of the Hilux and Land Cruiser Prado.

Central is how to describe the common 48 volt assistance on all Prados, and SR and SR5 Hilux editions.

Here those 2024-introduced 2.8-litre turbodiesel products market as hybrids. Over there, they do not.

Toyota Australia has since 2023 said the system comprising a motor generator, 48-volt battery and DC/DC converter does not go far enough to earn the hybrid badge.

TNZ perhaps thinks likewise, in that neither the Hilux nor the Prado feature actual hybrid badges on their bodyworks. But both are marketed front-and-centre as hybrids.

The Palmerston North-based market leader appears to have never explained why it has a different view to Australia, historically the market it works most often with.

Certainly, as testing in both markets has clearly evidenced, the 48 volt set up doesn’t come close to replicating the economy and emissions that arrive with the more advanced full hybrid technologies that go into Toyota passenger cars.

Toyota Australia’s view is that it wants to protect the two-decade reputation of all those petrol-electric hybrid Toyota (and Lexus) passenger cars and SUVs, which can cut fuel use by up to half – compared to the at best 10 percent saving claimed for the 48-volt technology.

The majority of those models are Efficiency Hybrids or series-parallel set-ups – meaning a small battery and electric motor, which can operate independently, are used to supplement the petrol engine to improve fuel economy.

It is so keen on enforcing the separation between those and the 48 volt examples it omits the ‘h’ word from its media statements about the diesels. TNZ, on the other hand, doesn’t.